1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical report producing apparatus that produces a report on trace reading (it is called interpretation of radiogram) of medical images that a medical specialist has been requested to trace-read, and in particular, to a technique for producing a hyperlink text that links together images, past medical reports, and other files which correspond to the contents of characters in findings in a report.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a conventional medical information system, a medical image storage system (system may be composed of a server and a plurality of NASs (Network Attached Storages) on a network) has been provided which receives images from a modality (image diagnosis technique such as X-ray, ultrasonic wave, CT, MRI, or nuclear medicine) to store, manage, and distribute them. The medical image storage system has been useful for diagnosis that utilizes medical images.
It has been common to subdivide technical fields for medical acts and to request medical specialists to trace-read medical images taken by an image diagnosis apparatus such as MRI. A medical specialist requested to trace-read medical images allows trace reading target images be displayed and then makes a report on trace reading and delivers it to the requester.
Apparatuses have already been put to practical use which electronically produce medical reports. For example, medical images delivered by a trace reading requester via network distribution or the like are stored in the apparatus. A report sheet is displayed on a screen and then filled out. The images to be trace-read are sequentially displayed. Findings for the images are then entered into a finding section of the sheet. A diagnosis is entered into a diagnosis section on the basis of the image findings taking the requester's examination purpose into account. For an image referred to in the findings, a reduced/enlarged or clipped image is produced and attached to an image attachment section or the like. The sheet data in a medical report produced in accordance with the above procedure is delivered to the trace reading requester through, for example, the network.
It has been pointed out that in a report produced by the conventional medical report producing apparatus, the relationship between the contents of the findings and the attached image is often difficult to understand. For example, if a plurality of similar images are referred to in the text of the findings, the images may be mistaken for others. Further, if the attached image is displayed on a report screen, finding information may not be accurately communicated depending on monitor resolution or the size of a screen space. Furthermore, if not only images to be trace-read but also past medical reports or historical information are to be referenced, the specialist must perform a cumbersome operation of reading, editing, and attaching appropriate information file to the report.
It has thus been proposed that images displayed on a viewer be linked to characters on the report so that the apparatus can cooperate with an image server in displaying address information indicating where the images are stored, as a hyperlink text (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2005-301453). However, this technique can display only the information in the hyperlink text. If there are related images or newly processed images, the report producer must voluntarily re-link these pieces of information.
The requester may actually request to view a part or the whole of the process executed by a trace reading specialist. For example, the requester particularly desires to see images compared with one another during trace reading. To meet this requirement, the report producer must always carefully set up links, which increases the amount of work for report production.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-079770 provides a technique for utilizing link information for referencing a particular group of files as external information in order to allow diagnostic information to be shared in an electronic medical report system. However, the technique described in this document only allows any medical institutions to draw a particular file group out of the link information stored in a submitted patient card. This technique cannot be simply utilized for the above medical report production.
As described above, the following function has been proposed for the conventional medical report producing apparatus in order to make the contents of findings easily understood: reference information is linked to a target position in a finding string so that the information can be displayed on the viewer by specifying and inputting a link destination. However, when many pieces of information are to be referenced, they must be sequentially linked together during report production. This disadvantageously requires a cumbersome report producing operation.